Speeches: Literary and Social, by Charles Dickens

SPEECH: LONDON, MAY 11, 1864.

[On the above date Mr. Dickens presided at the Adelphi Theatre, at a public meeting, for the purpose of founding the
Shakespeare Schools, in connexion with the Royal Dramatic College, and delivered the following address:]

Ladies and gentlemen — Fortunately for me, and fortunately for you, it is the duty of the Chairman on an occasion of
this nature, to be very careful that he does not anticipate those speakers who come after him. Like Falstaff, with a
considerable difference, he has to be the cause of speaking in others. It is rather his duty to sit and hear speeches
with exemplary attention than to stand up to make them; so I shall confine myself, in opening these proceedings as your
business official, to as plain and as short an exposition as I can possibly give you of the reasons why we come
together.

First of all I will take leave to remark that we do not come together in commemoration of Shakespeare. We have
nothing to do with any commemoration, except that we are of course humble worshippers of that mighty genius, and that
we propose by-and-by to take his name, but by no means to take it in vain. If, however, the Tercentenary celebration
were a hundred years hence, or a hundred years past, we should still be pursuing precisely the same object, though we
should not pursue it under precisely the same circumstances. The facts are these: There is, as you know, in existence
an admirable institution called the Royal Dramatic College, which is a place of honourable rest and repose for veterans
in the dramatic art. The charter of this college, which dates some five or six years back, expressly provides for the
establishment of schools in connexion with it; and I may venture to add that this feature of the scheme, when it was
explained to him, was specially interesting to his Royal Highness the late Prince Consort, who hailed it as evidence of
the desire of the promoters to look forward as well as to look back; to found educational institutions for the rising
generation, as well as to establish a harbour of refuge for the generation going out, or at least having their faces
turned towards the setting sun. The leading members of the dramatic art, applying themselves first to the more pressing
necessity of the two, set themselves to work on the construction of their harbour of refuge, and this they did with the
zeal, energy, good-will, and good faith that always honourably distinguish them in their efforts to help one another.
Those efforts were very powerfully aided by the respected gentleman 14 under
whose roof we are assembled, and who, I hope, may be only half as glad of seeing me on these boards as I always am to
see him here. With such energy and determination did Mr. Webster and his brothers and sisters in art proceed with their
work, that at this present time all the dwelling-houses of the Royal Dramatic College are built, completely furnished,
fitted with every appliance, and many of them inhabited. The central hall of the College is built, the grounds are
beautifully planned and laid out, and the estate has become the nucleus of a prosperous neighbourhood. This much
achieved, Mr. Webster was revolving in his mind how he should next proceed towards the establishment of the schools,
when, this Tercentenary celebration being in hand, it occurred to him to represent to the National Shakespeare
Committee their just and reasonable claim to participate in the results of any subscription for a monument to
Shakespeare. He represented to the committee that the social recognition and elevation of the followers of
Shakespeare’s own art, through the education of their children, was surely a monument worthy even of that great name.
He urged upon the committee that it was certainly a sensible, tangible project, which the public good sense would
immediately appreciate and approve. This claim the committee at once acknowledged; but I wish you distinctly to
understand that if the committee had never been in existence, if the Tercentenary celebration had never been attempted,
those schools, as a design anterior to both, would still have solicited public support.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, what it is proposed to do is, in fact, to find a new self-supporting public school; with
this additional feature, that it is to be available for both sexes. This, of course, presupposes two separate distinct
schools. As these schools are to be built on land belonging to the Dramatic College, there will be from the first no
charge, no debt, no incumbrance of any kind under that important head. It is, in short, proposed simply to establish a
new self-supporting public school, in a rapidly increasing neighbourhood, where there is a large and fast accumulating
middle-class population, and where property in land is fast rising in value. But, inasmuch as the project is a project
of the Royal Dramatic College, and inasmuch as the schools are to be built on their estate, it is proposed evermore to
give their schools the great name of Shakespeare, and evermore to give the followers of Shakespeare’s art a prominent
place in them. With this view, it is confidently believed that the public will endow a foundation, say, for forty
foundation scholars — say, twenty girls and twenty boys — who shall always receive their education gratuitously, and
who shall always be the children of actors, actresses, or dramatic writers. This school, you will understand, is to be
equal to the best existing public school. It is to be made to impart a sound, liberal, comprehensive education, and it
is to address the whole great middle class at least as freely, as widely, and as cheaply as any existing public
school.

Broadly, ladies and gentlemen, this is the whole design. There are foundation scholars at Eton, foundation scholars
at nearly all our old schools, and if the public, in remembrance of a noble part of our standard national literature,
and in remembrance of a great humanising art, will do this thing for these children, it will at the same time be doing
a wise and good thing for itself, and will unquestionably find its account in it. Taking this view of the case — and I
cannot be satisfied to take any lower one — I cannot make a sorry face about “the poor player.” I think it is a term
very much misused and very little understood — being, I venture to say, appropriated in a wrong sense by players
themselves. Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, I can only present the player to you exceptionally in this wise — that he
follows a peculiar and precarious vocation, a vocation very rarely affording the means of accumulating money — that
that vocation must, from the nature of things, have in it many undistinguished men and women to one distinguished one —
that it is not a vocation the exerciser of which can profit by the labours of others, but in which he must earn every
loaf of his bread in his own person, with the aid of his own face, his own limbs, his own voice, his own memory, and
his own life and spirits; and these failing, he fails. Surely this is reason enough to render him some little help in
opening for his children their paths through life. I say their paths advisedly, because it is not often found, except
under the pressure of necessity, or where there is strong hereditary talent — which is always an exceptional case —
that the children of actors and actresses take to the stage. Persons therefore need not in the least fear that by
helping to endow these schools they would help to overstock the dramatic market. They would do directly the reverse,
for they would divert into channels of public distinction and usefulness those good qualities which would otherwise
languish in that market’s over-rich superabundance.

This project has received the support of the head of the most popular of our English public schools. On the
committee stands the name of that eminent scholar and gentleman, the Provost of Eton. You justly admire this liberal
spirit, and your admiration — which I cordially share — brings me naturally to what I wish to say, that I believe there
is not in England any institution so socially liberal as a public school. It has been called a little cosmos of life
outside, and I think it is so, with the exception of one of life’s worst foibles — for, as far as I know, nowhere in
this country is there so complete an absence of servility to mere rank, to mere position, to mere riches as in a public
school. A boy there is always what his abilities or his personal qualities make him. We may differ about the curriculum
and other matters, but of the frank, free, manly, independent spirit preserved in our public schools, I apprehend there
can be no kind of question. It has happened in these later times that objection has been made to children of dramatic
artists in certain little snivelling private schools — but in public schools never. Therefore, I hold that the actors
are wise, and gratefully wise, in recognizing the capacious liberality of a public school, in seeking not a little
hole-and- corner place of education for their children exclusively, but in addressing the whole of the great middle
class, and proposing to them to come and join them, the actors, on their own property, in a public school, in a part of
the country where no such advantage is now to be found.

I have now done. The attempt has been a very timid one. I have endeavoured to confine myself within my means, or,
rather, like the possessor of an extended estate, to hand it down in an unembarrassed condition. I have laid a trifle
of timber here and there, and grubbed up a little brushwood, but merely to open the view, and I think I can descry in
the eye of the gentleman who is to move the first resolution that he distinctly sees his way. Thanking you for the
courtesy with which you have heard me, and not at all doubting that we shall lay a strong foundation of these schools
to-day, I will call, as the mover of the first resolution, on Mr. Robert Bell.